FYI JSYK BTW

Tag: grief

I haven’t been writing much. I created one piece for a speaking engagement I was invited to on the topic of Grief, but due to the nature of the piece, I am not posting it publicly. Contact me privately, if you’d like to read it or see a dark video of my performance.

The good news is the frequency of my updates may be increasing. There is a lot going on with our family and trying to keep everyone updated via Facebook statuses that are mixed in with political and Hamilton posts, is proving to be difficult.

Also, I am reaching critical mass in my own healing right now. There are a lot of changes going on with me personally. Today, Jesse and I had one of those conversations where a slow realization crept up on me and I have some ideas brewing. My current intention is to share, but there is a lot going on.

First things first, the situation I am getting the most questions about is our living situation. We are currently in the process of researching the best place for us to live.

We recently had Jessica’s Neuro-Psych testing redone (the last time she had been tested was back in 2012), and the report confirmed some suspicions we have been having over the past year or so regarding Jessica’s future. The information revealed seems to indicate that Washington may not be the best place for us to live.

When we initially moved here three and some years ago, we applied for disability services for Jessica and we were denied. Coming from California, where we had a lot of in-home support in addition to all of our medical services, this change took some adjusting. Jessica has made some amazing progress in the past three years, but we have finally reached a point in her recovery where doctors are being a little less gentle about their thoughts on her prognosis.

It’s been sobering.

After receiving the report we come home and fired up Mr. Google. We found the services we received in California are available in many other states, as well, and we began building a spreadsheet including all of the factors that will influence our decision.

(Our current timeline for a decision is the end of the 2016-2017 school year. We are in a lease until May and I am still the President of the PTA at Jocelyn’s school. A job I don’t take lightly and could not leave my board in a lurch.)

We have ruled out more than half of the country, due to the region or politics or similar criteria, but were still left with 13 possibilities: CA, CO, GA, IL, MA, MD, MN, MO, NC, NY, OH, PA and WI.

In the few short days since beginning this process, we have actually added WA back into the mix since we have found services we were not aware of at the time we received the report. We have also eliminated NC due to their “Bathroom Bill”, GA due to anecdotal reports that services are increasingly being denied, and MN for personal reasons. The search continues.

We have already been receiving an incredible amount of support and offers for assistance with research and we are very grateful. While it is possible we will stay in Washington or return to California, it is just as possible that we could end up in Colorado (heavily influenced by Jesse’s work) or even the east coast (heavily influenced by services that seem to be available and the fact that they have two schools that are specifically for students with TBIs).

I won’t say we are back in the crisis mode we were in at the time of the accident and the years that followed, but the newest Neuro-Psych report has certainly ripped opened wounds that have never completely healed.

We ask for your patience and your grace if we seem emotional or over-stressed.

And please forgive the barrage of Hamilton posts. It truly is one of the things that keeps me going, while we deal with our ongoing hurricane and the moments where the words don’t reach.